At one time, all of the world's continents were joined into one
super-continent called Pangaea. Pangaea later broke-up to become
two major continents; Laurasia and Gondwana. (Refer to
maps).

Laurasia was composed of Europe, North
America and Asia, while Gondwana was composed of Africa, South America, New
Zealand, Madagascar, India, Antarctica, Arabia, Iran and Australia.

There is strong supporting evidence in favour of the theory of continental
drift. Such evidence includes similarities in rock types, fossils, flora and
fauna of previously-joined continents.

India provides a good
illustrative example of the continental drift theory. In paleontological
terms, India is considered a "southern land mass" and is often referred to
as "the sub-continent". India broke away from Antarctica and Africa about
100 million years ago, yet the flora in India today is more closely related
to the flora of Africa than that of Asia, to which it is currently joined.
India is slowly pushing into Asia (hence the Himalayas which are still
rising to this day) but in botanical terms is not actually a part of Asia at
all! Of course, India has been joined to Asia for several million years now,
so understandably some Asian flora has since colonised the Indian
subcontinent.

As well as modern flora today, there is ample
supporting evidence of the theory of continental drift in the fossil record.
The presence of plants from the order Glossopterid in the fossil records of
Australia, Antarctica, India, Africa and South America suggest that these
continents were joined at one time. Glossopterid fossils have never
been found in Asia. There are other fossil species shared across the
southern land masses including Deucridium spp, and a range of
reptiles, amphibia and fish.

The earth's crust
consists of at least fifteen plates. These are made of rigid lithosphere and
carry the world's continents. When the edges of these plates
collide, earthquakes and/or volcanoes can result as lava rises to the
surface or pressure is released from stresses between the continental
plates. (Tsunamis are sometimes a bi-product of these processes).

One of the reasons why there are no earthquakes or live volcanoes in
Australia is because Australia lies within the middle of the
Indian-Australian plate. Countries or regions that lie on the areas where
the plates meet are often subjected to these phenomena, examples being New
Zealand which has lots of volcanoes due to its location on the
Indian-Australian and Pacific Plates, and the west coast of the United
States, which lies on the join of the Pacific and American plates. Japan is
another country which historically has been subjected to earthquakes and
volcanoes.

While the plates are moving, the continents are drifting
also.

India is pushing so hard into Asia and is being forced
underneath the Asian continent. As a result, the height of the Himalayas is
rising every year. Australia is also moving north, albeit at a much slower 6
cm a year. In the last 45 million years, Australia has moved through 27° of
latitude. In another 20 million years, Cape York will have reached the
equator!

You can view periodical maps showing the movement of the
continents here.